Deputy to mentally ill gun buyer: Sale OK

Jul. 30, 2013
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Jill Schaller pauses for a moment while telling how her 19-year-old son, who has AspergerÔ??s syndrome, purchased a gun from a Reno police offer. / Andy Barron, Reno Gazette-Journal

by Martha Bellisle, Reno Gazette-Journal

by Martha Bellisle, Reno Gazette-Journal

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RENO, Nev. -- The sheriff's deputy who responded to a mother's 911 report that her mentally ill son ran off with a gun he bought from a police officer should have recognized the man was not allowed to have it and seized the weapon until the situation was sorted out, the Carson City sheriff said Tuesday.

Instead, Washoe County Deputy John Graves told Jill Schaller that her son's gun purchase was legal and told the man he needed to show his parents that "he can be a responsible gun owner," according to the deputy's report, acquired by the Reno Gazette-Journal through a public records request.

A Gazette-Journal investigation found that, in fact, the man was prohibited from possessing a firearm because a judge had ruled in 2012 that his mental illness made him incompetent to care for himself.

Under state and federal law, a person adjudicated as mentally ill can't have a gun.

Schaller said Graves' statements, which turned out to be wrong, made it more difficult for them to convince their son that "Mom and Dad were not just making this stuff up," and it was illegal for him to have a firearm.

Reno police Sgt. Laura Conklin's sale of her personal gun while on duty to a mentally ill 19-year-old sparked debates about the lack of background-check requirements in private party sales. The Reno Police Department has launched an internal investigation into the sale, and the Sparks Police Department is conducting a criminal investigation.

Because the investigations are ongoing, Sheriff Michael Haley said he could not comment on Graves' actions. Graves could not be reached for comment, and he did not respond to a request for comment made through the sheriff's department.

Haley said that deputies are trained to know what types of people are disqualified from buying a gun.

According to the July 7 report, Jill and Richard Schaller called for help after their son returned from vacation and ran out of the house with the gun he bought from Conklin. The Schallers said their son has Asperger's syndrome and was hospitalized in a mental health facility for making suicide threats, Graves said in his report.

"Due to these factors, Jill said she and Richard were granted continuing guardianship over him past the age of 18 by a Nevada court judge," Graves said, adding they "were both extremely worried about (their son) either harming himself or possibly others as they indicated in the past he has shown signs of being homicidal, but they did not elaborate on those signs."

Armed with that information, "bells should have gone off," Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong said. "That should have been his signal" to check further into the situation to see if the young man was prohibited from possessing a gun.

"(Graves) should have taken the safe route and told the family, 'We're going to hold on to the gun overnight and sort this all out,'" Furlong said. Instead, Graves and another deputy connected with Conklin and exchanged her money for the gun, according to the deputy's report.

Graves said the Schallers were outraged and frustrated that their son was able to buy a gun in the first place, especially from a police officer.

"Jill told me she felt it was our duty to remove handguns from the streets and not introduce them," Graves wrote. "I explained to Jill and Richard that even though the Glock was sold by a potentially on-duty police officer, the sale of the gun itself falls under private party gun sale laws," which made it legal.

Graves said he spoke with the Schallers' son and "he agreed to work with Jill and Richard and take steps towards showing them he can be a responsible gun owner."

Jill Schaller said Tuesday that the deputy's statements made the situation worse.

"That made it more confusing for (our son) because all of them were just saying, 'Sorry, your mom and dad said no,' instead of saying it was illegal," she said. If Graves had told the young man that he can't have a gun by law, "he would have listened to them - they were people of authority," she said.

"Nobody told him it was illegal," until the Gazette-Journal investigation revealed his prohibited status, Schaller said. "It took us like four or five days showing him the statute" before he accepted that he could not have a gun.

Furlong, who oversaw the response to a mass shooting at a Carson City IHOP restaurant by a mentally ill man in 2011, said law enforcement needs to focus its efforts toward understanding mental illnesses, and in this case, it was lucky no one was hurt.

"It just highlights the need for law enforcement and mental health to work more closely together," Furlong said. "Just because a person has a mental illness does not mean he is a bad person. But they do have the probability of having an episode, and if there's a gun involved, it's a recipe for disaster."